


Finding Bergara

by chapscher



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: 40s AU, Alternate Universe - Noir, Gun Violence, M/M, genre appropriate angst, mention of japanese internment
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 17:45:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16163774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chapscher/pseuds/chapscher
Summary: It was a warm summer night in LA when Detective Madej was approached by a woman who is the sole survivor of a wedding day massacre. The case, however gruesome it was, seems fairly straightforward until he sees a connection to his late partner's death.





	Finding Bergara

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of my [BuzzFeed Unsolved: 6 Weeks of Halloween](https://spooky-chapscher.tumblr.com/post/177665561673/i-wrote-up-some-octoberearly-november-halloween)

The empty gin bottle rattled against the highball glass on Shane’s desk as the rail car rumbled past his office. He breathed deep, listening to the faint rustle of palm trees outside his window and hoping that the gust of wind that followed the trolley would be able to make it up to the third-story. It was a hot night, far too hot to sleep or even be with anyone. Not that Shane had anyone to be with. But that, he decided, was probably for the best given his line of work. It wasn’t easy being a private investigator in L.A.; more often than not he was barely scraping by enough to make a living. Sure, he had a few breaks - enough to hold onto a downtown office – but it had been a while since his last big case.

Shane leaned back on his chair and fanned himself with his partially unbuttoned shirt. Perhaps a call could come in. Shane closed his eyes and listened closely, as if wishing were enough to make the heavy black phone beside him start ringing. If only. Perhaps he would get called in for extra security at the Ilnyckyj Hotel. Intellectually speaking, security was a hell of a step down from his detective work. Financially things were a different story. Maybe he’ll luck out and Lim would call, saying some actress lost a thousand-dollar earring during one of the presidential suite orgies or however the other half lived.

Detective work is really the only way that he would be able to step into a place that classy anyways. He doubted that he would be able to hold onto a full-time job there. After all this time there was still so much tension between them; tension that Ilnyckyj still tried to smooth over. Lim had been Ryan’s friend and after what happened… Shane doubted that he would ever be forgiven.

A knock at the door startled Shane out of his thoughts and he got to his feet, not bothering to button up his shirt or pull on a jacket to cover the sweat stains. He took the empty gin bottle off his desk and hid it under a few papers in the garbage can. There were enough lush detectives in the city, he didn’t need anyone thinking he was another.

Another knock.

“Hold on, I’ll be there in a minute.”

There was a shadow in the frosted glass doorway now. A woman stood on the other side and repeatedly looked over her shoulder and down the hallway. Shane unfortunately knew the type all too well and rushed to the door, not bothering to take down the laundry drying next to his unmade bed. With a few clicks the locks were undone and the light from the hallway spilled into the small office.

“Are you alri-”

The woman at the door slipped past Shane and into the room. Quickly, methodically, she turned off the desk lamp and pulled down the window shade. She was short and was made up like she had just stepped off a movie set. She wore a floor-length ball gown that was mostly hidden under a long trench coat with only a few inches of her dark red dress visible. She pulled the edge of the shade aside and peered down onto the streets, her hand held out towards Shane in a gesture of silence. He nodded and quietly closed and locked the door again.

She moved to the other side of the window, checking further down the road. Shane pulled out two tumblers and a bottle of scotch, the one he only drank from after a particularly taxing case. They barely made a sound as he set them down on the desk and watched the woman. She made that hand gesture again but quickly let it drop to her side as she stepped away from the window and finally met Shane’s eyes, the gentle lines of her face barely visible in the light that spilled in from the side of the shade.

“We don’t have to have the desk lamp on,” Shane said, his voice quiet and patient. “But may I light a candle? I have a policy where I like to see who I’m talking to.”

She nodded and made a soft little affirmative hum.

“Please. Sit down.”

Shane pulled out the client chair and disappeared to the side of the office he used as an apartment to find and light a candle, a dusty emergency one he kept for the building’s frequent power outages. When he came back the woman was sitting down and staring down at her hands folded on her lap. He set the light down on the desk and studied her face. Her expression was overall blank, a slight hint of a frown pulling at her lips.

“I hope this isn’t too presumptuous of me,” Shane said. “But may I take your coat? That can’t possibly be comfortable in this heat.”

She nodded and got to her feet, untying the coat’s belt and letting it fall open. Shane took a step back in surprise. She wasn’t wearing a red dress at all. It was a bridal gown, ornate with delicate lace and stained a deep red along the bottom, almost black where it touched the floor. Red splattered up along the folds of her skirt, splattered and marked with a distinct bloody handprint. Shane tried to quickly school his initial look of shock but it was too late. The woman had already seen it and her eyes started to brim with tears.

“Are you hurt?”

She shook her head and choked on a sob. “They’re all dead. They’re all dead.”

Her hands flew up to cover her mouth as she sank back into the chair, teardrops sliding down her cheeks and over her trembling fingertips. Shane poured her a glass of scotch and sat beside her in silence as she wept. When she did speak her words came slowly and were separated by long quiet spells where she stared down at her hands, her eyes wide and thoughts worlds away. From her fractured confession and revelations Shane managed to discover this:

Her name was Mimsy Alcorn. She had once been the young wife of a property tycoon. About a year ago she met and began her affair with a lawyer by the name of Night. She wanted to end the affair and return to her husband but Night convinced her to get a divorce instead. It was barely a month since her divorce before Night proposed and started planning their own wedding. Something curious about Night that she noticed around this time was that he always seemed to be accompanied by this tall, thin man who she had ever only heard called “Legs.” Night and Legs were close, close enough to make her think that there was something going on between them that she didn’t know about. One evening she asked Night directly if he and Legs were doing something behind her back. Night seemed unusually calm in the face of such an accusation and fixed her a drink. That was the last thing she remembered before she came to her senses two days later, having dinner in a restaurant downtown. That ended Mimsy’s questionings about Legs, at least for a while. A week ago Night told her that Legs would be joining them on their honeymoon. Of course she objected, but that entire conversation and the days following were nothing more than a haze. When she was lucid again Night told her two things. First, he thanked her for agreeing to let Legs join them. And then he told her that her ex-husband had been found floating in the harbor, shot in the chest.

“That was two days ago,” Mimsy said, drying her eyes and wiping off her makeup with the handkerchief Shane had given her. “My wedding was today.”

“Do you know what happened to your late ex-husband?”

“Not exactly. I know that Night and Legs are responsible. I… I don’t know how I know and I don’t know why they would do such a thing. But I know that… emotionally they’re capable of it. They can both be so cold. They enjoy that about each other, they…” She sighed. “I know I can’t prove any of this. Even if I could then I’m not sure if I would have gone to the police. Night was never aggressive towards me, but I was afraid of what he would do if he found out that I betrayed him like that. I… I’m sure I’m just being hysterical.”

“You don’t sound hysterical,” Shane said. “Tell me about what happened at the wedding.”

Mimsy downed the last of her scotch and set the glass on the desk, watching the few remaining droplets cling to the side of the tumbler. “My wedding was a massacre. That’s all it was ever a front for, I’m sure of that now.”

“Who was killed?”

She shrugged. “Everyone. His side was filled with people I’ve never seen before, most dressed in black. My side had a bunch of people who worked for my late ex-husband but nobody else. No family, at any rate. Night had told me that my family wasn’t supportive of us and weren’t invited. That was probably the only charitable thing he’s ever done, although he may have just been trying to make more room on my side of the chapel. Night organized everything; invitations, food, chapel space, music, everything. He assigned me a maid of honor, someone who he called his sister but who barely knew him. The preacher wasn’t even the one we saw Sundays, he was some guy Night said he met at work.” She shook her head. “I was so blind. Nobody will ever believe that I was so blind, but I loved him. I saw the soft side of him that he couldn’t show at work. He was so quiet and thoughtful. And he never raised a hand to me or anything.”

“Talk to me about the ceremony.”

“It was beautiful.” Mimsy coughed a laugh and shook her head. “God, I hate how beautiful it was. When I saw myself in the dressing room mirror I started crying. I looked like a postcard. Everything was so precise and perfect that I didn’t even look real and it frightened me. The chapel was beautiful too. It was the sort of wedding I wanted my first to look like. There were flowers everywhere and the light coming in from the stained glass windows cast this colorful glow over the congregation. Night was so handsome in his white suit and even Legs looked like a painting standing there behind him.” She stopped and met Shane’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to go on and on over it, but I had never seen anything like it in all my life. And sometimes it feels there’s a finite amount of beauty in the world and there was a lot there that was just… wasted. Wasted on him and what he did.”

Shane nodded. “It’s okay, Mimsy. Go on.”

“Everything had gone according to plan up until the vows. I stopped in the middle of mine when people started moving around in the back of the chapel. Someone had found out that the doors were locked. That’s when Legs reached under a floral display and pulled out two tommy guns. He handed one to Night and they just started shooting everyone. Both sides of the aisle. The preacher. My maid of honor. Everyone. Everyone except each other… and me.”

“Do you know why?”

Mimsy shook her head. “No. I mean, they gave me a reason, but I don’t know what it means. Legs thanked me for ‘helping them.’ I had nothing to do with it, detective, I swear.”

“Where are Night and Legs now?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I came to you. Night said that he didn’t want to, but he would kill me if I told the police anything. And he… he said that if I found him then he’ll… he’ll ‘do this all again.’ I don’t even know what that means but I have never been more frightened in my life.” She took a deep breath and rubbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. “Can you help me, detective?”

“I should be able to,” Shane said. “What do you want me to do for you?”

“I need you to find him. Find out who he is and where he and Legs are going. I want to stay as far away from them as possible. And maybe… maybe if you find enough evidence or catch them in the act then they can get arrested. I want the prosecution to have a case against them that’s so strong that not even Night could talk his way out of it.”

“You think they’ll kill again soon?”

“I don’t know. If not, they’ll do… something again soon. You know? Something… not entirely natural for two men.”

Which reminded him.

“May I ask what brought you here? There are plenty of P.I.s in the city with better offices than mine. Why me?”

“I remember overhearing Legs once. He mentioned you by name. I think you may have had a case involving him and Night before. He said something along the lines of ‘I don’t think that Detective Madej will be bothering us again.’ This was about two months ago, around the time I got suspicious over where Night and Legs disappeared to in the evenings, so I was already thinking about hiring a detective. And… I know this looks bad, but I’m not doing this to put you in danger. I only thought that maybe you already knew something about them.”

Shane leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling in thought, recalling his cases from a few months back. It wasn’t too unusual for him to receive death threats, the messages slipped under the door or with a phone call at 1 a.m. Two months ago he was following a few rather aggressive leads in a case and got them more frequently. It could have been one of those. He kept them all in a file in case he ever needed to do handwriting analysis.

“Sorry,” he said. “Nothing led me to a Night or Legs. But I’ll still take your case.”

“Thank you, detective.”

Shane got to his feet and took a pen and paper out of the desk. “I’ll need some information from you. Addresses, names. Start with his home address and the chapel. And your late ex-husband’s name; I’m willing to bet that Night and Legs had some hand in that.”

“I’ll give you what I can. I have our house key if you want to let yourself inside. God knows I’m not about to go back there until I know they’re both gone.” she said, still writing. “Don’t worry about payment. I have plenty in an account that Night doesn’t even know about. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to get anything to you until Monday.”

“That’s fine.” Shane drummed his fingertips on the desk, wondering where Legs knew him from. “You don’t happen to have a picture of Night or Legs on you, do you?”

Mimsy set down the pen and reached behind her neck, fiddling with the clasp of a necklace that had been hidden under her lace collar. In the low light Shane could only barely see the shine of the silver chain, shifting as Mimsy unfastened the necklace and pulled it out from under her clothes. In the middle of the chain was a round locket with a heart engraved on the smooth metal.

“It was all I could do to keep from throwing this out of the trolley on the way here. But I knew you would need it.”

Shane thanked her as he pressed his short thumb nail against the notch where the two locket halves met, gently prying them apart. As the locket opened Shane felt his throat knot and the blood run from his cheeks.

For an instant he thought that it really was Ryan. He had the same tired handsome eyes. The same gentle wave to his jet black hair. His lips were full and looked as soft as the memory of their caress. He had the same low-set cheekbones and rounded cheeks, gentle but masculine all at once. Shane had long ago memorized every detail of Ryan’s face. How many times had he kissed along his jaw or tangled his long fingers into Ryan’s silky black hair? He knew his body well, his hands tracing over his golden skin as the two of them fell back onto the Murphy bed in their too-small apartment.

The longer Shane looked the further away from Ryan the photograph became. They may share a face, but there was something empty in the black iris of Night’s eyes. There was a stiffness in his skin and a disdainful curl just barely visible on his lips. This wasn’t Ryan, it was a grotesque facsimile. And…

The night Ryan died Shane had seen this man. Shane’s eyes were blurred with tears and his mind slipping with agony, but he remembered him. At first he thought he was hallucinating and had imagined Ryan standing over him, but when Shane reached for him the man laughed. A hateful humorless laugh. Whatever it was, Shane had thought, wasn’t only mocking him, but mocking Ryan and everything he was. And Shane hated him. Shane took a scrap of wood from the ground and struck this not-Ryan across the face. The man was stronger than Shane and knocked him to the ground easily. That was when the world started to fade, but Shane did remember getting one last look at the man and the deep gash on the bridge of his nose, spilling blood down his face.

Shane ghosted a fingertip over the small photograph, remembering the arc he struck the man in. It was only then that he was able to see it. A mark so small that it looked like it could have been a crease in the photo-paper or some barely-noticeable speck that had come out in processing. But it was there. Captured on film – the small discolored mark of a scar.

“This is all I can think of right now,” Mimsy said as she slid the slip of paper across the desk to Shane. “I don’t know if the police made it to the chapel or not. Nobody was there when I left. Nobody alive, at any rate.”

Shane looked over the names and addresses. “I’ll go to the chapel first. Do you have a place to stay the night?”

“I…” She looked down. “I don’t know. I’m afraid to call my sister. I don’t want her getting dragged into this. She and I haven’t been on speaking terms for a while.”

Shane got to his feet and circled round the desk to the phone, the necklace chain wrapped around his fingers. “I know a couple of places that’ll put you up for a few nights.”

“Oh, I don’t need much.”

“I know some quiet motels. One to the south and one to the east. There’s a few hotels in Highland Park and Garvanza.”

Shane closed the locket, thumb tracing over the engraving.

 _To my Mimsy – NB_.  

“I just want some place secure,” Mimsy said. “Some place where the staff won’t ask too many questions.”  

“I have a few places in mind. I’ll see who’s still awake.” Shane looked down at the engraving again as he lifted the handset off the receiver. “By the way, you never told me what Night’s surname was.”

“Bergara.” Mimsy looked up at him. “Why do you ask?”

“Because that just decided your hotel and my first stop.” He turned to speak into the phone. “Get me the Ilnyckyj Hotel. It’s urgent.”

 

 

 

The Ilnyckyj Hotel had an unearthly stillness late at night. It was something that Shane had a hard time getting used to whenever Lim hired him for security. The bellhop and concierge stations were empty and the grand piano stood with its mouth agape but silent. The lone too-bright light over the check-in desk made the entire place look like a scene from a bad dream; the one where you wander aimlessly through an abandoned city, looking for someone. Anyone.

Two sets of footsteps cut through the silence as Lim and Ilnyckyj rounded the corner and approached Shane and Mimsy.

“Detective Madej,” Lim greeted. “And Miss Alcorn.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Alcorn,” Ilnyckyj said as he politely took and kissed the back of her hand. “Were it under better circumstances.”

Mimsy gave Ilnyckyj an honest but tired smile and bowed her head in acknowledgement.

“Your safety and comfort are our top priorities, madam,” Lim said. He turned to Shane, the softness in his face immediately fading. “And I believe that we have something to discuss.”

“To investigate,” Shane partially corrected, matching the sternness of Lim’s tone.

“As grateful as I am for your generous hospitality,” Mimsy said, stepping forward. “I don’t feel comfortable out here in the open. Could we possibly continue our discussion in your office?”

“Of course,” Lim said, his back straightening as he fell back into his professional air. “Follow me.”

The four made their way across the gold-leaved lobby, past the elevators and through the heavy double doors of the main office. It was a dimly-lit place with an ornately carved desk and plush chairs. Everything in the Ilnyckyj Hotel exuded a powerful, masculine elegance, dominant in its baroque aesthetic. The office, however, was more subdued; full of velvet and dark wood. It was clearly the only room in the building that Lim let Ilnyckyj decorate himself, a thought that always made Shane smile.

The two managers were always careful not to argue or even have differing opinions in front of the guests and staff, but when it was just the two of them with Shane and Ryan they let themselves bicker. It was a game to them; neither able to hide a smile when one managed to get the other flustered. Their love always seemed to mature to Shane. They were always in synch with each other. Shane wasn’t like that with Ryan. Although they agreed on a lot they never really understood what the other was thinking. The completely different geographies of their minds didn’t seem to matter, though. They had been so in love. Shane had wondered what would happen when they finally saw each other as clearly as Lim and Ilnyckyj did. He remembered worrying that Ryan would fall out of love with him once the mystery between them was gone.

It turns out he never needed to worry about that in the end.

“You mentioned having a locket,” Ilnyckyj said as he closed and locked the doors behind them. “May I see it?”

Shane hesitantly agreed and took it out of his pocket, handing it to Ilnyckyj. To Shane’s surprise he didn’t open it, instead turning the necklace around a few times. He handed it to Lim.

“What do you see?”

“Not very ornate. I’d say 1910s or early 20s.” Lim undid the clasp and set the chain aside, examining the locket itself. “24 karats.” He gave it back. “Odd for worn jewelry. What do you see?”

Ilnyckyj took a magnifying glass out of his desk and opened the locket, his thumb quickly covering Night’s photograph. Instead he examined the empty half of the locket, holding it under the light and studying the shallow dip that a picture could be pressed into.

“Pawned,” he said to Lim, softly snapping to two halves closed. “Twice.” He slipped the necklace chain back into place and handed it back to Shane. “The outside would get scratched too easily for the pawnbroker to make any distinct marks, so he did it on the inside.”

“Pawned?” Mimsy echoed. “That necklace hasn’t left my side since Night gave it to me. And there’s barely a scratch on it – it doesn’t look like it’s been knocking around some seedy pawn shop.”

“It must have been pawned before he gave it to you,” Shane said. “He had it professionally cleaned before getting it engraved. I know a few places I could ask around, see what else he’s been pawning off.”

“Are you sure?” Mimsy asked. “It’s just a simple little locket and I’ve had it for five years. Do they keep records that long?”

Shane was taken aback. “Five years?” Mimsy looked up at Shane, confused. Shane shook his head. “I’m sorry, I was under the impression that your relationship with Night had been significantly shorter.”

She bit her lip. “I may have made it sound that way. I’m a little embarrassed at how long my affair had gone on. Although I left my husband early last year, I had been seeing Night since spring of ‘44. He gave me the locket that summer.”

Lim and Ilnyckyj both looked at Shane.

“1944?” Ilnyckyj echoed.

“Yes. We met when my husband launched the _Qu’est-ce que c’est._ That’s a lounge in Hollywood. Night was there. The only one who didn’t seem too busy to talk to me, really.”

Lim took the necklace out of Shane’s hands and stepped between him and Mimsy. “This man?” Lim opened the locket and turned the photograph towards her. “You met _this man_ in Los Angeles, California in 1944?”

“I did! Why do you keep asking me that?”

Without putting down the locket or even looking away from Mimsy Lim said, “Detective Madej, would you care to answer her question?”

Shane glanced over to Ilnyckyj for help. He had never heard Lim be so forceful before, especially with a guest. But Ilnyckyj said nothing as he stood perfectly still, staring down at the magnifying glass and green leather desk pad under his fingertips.

“He’s asking you that,” Shane started, his voice measured and words careful. “Because he wants to know how Night avoided internment.”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know,” Lim repeated.

“I had only just met him.” Her cheeks were flushed and she looked between Lim and Shane. “To put it lightly, gentlemen, it was not the sort of affair where we discussed the state of the world.”

“Even if it wasn’t,” Shane said, “there must have been some point where this question crossed your mind.”

“Of course it had.” She took a deep breath as her eyes settled back on the locket. “But by the time that we were comfortable enough with each other for me to bring up that sort of thing it was no longer relevant. Besides, it didn’t take me long to figure out that Night was a man of means who rarely traveled beyond his close social circles. I know that there were a few things with his and Legs’ law office that weren’t quite on the level – financially, I mean. I know he had bribed the police for his work. It wouldn’t be too far of a stretch for him to have paid them off so he could stay in L.A.”

Shane nodded thoughtfully and took the locket from Lim. “What kind of law did Night practice, Ms. Alcorn?”

“Officially? Night and Legs were tax lawyers. But from what I saw of their office and Night’s private library he had most of his material on criminal law.”

“You don’t happen to recall the name of any of his clients, do you?”

“No, but he kept their files locked in the home office. Maybe he’d be fool enough to leave them there, or you’d be a fool to go looking for them.”

Shane nodded and looked back down at the picture of Night. If he squinted or covered the scar with his fingertips he looked so much like Ryan that Shane's heart began to beat with a dull ache.

“Miss Alcorn,” Ilnyckyj said, his voice soft as he finally stepped out from behind his desk. “May I escort you to your room? That is, if the detective has finished his questioning.”

Shane nodded and Ilnyckyj escorted her to the ornate double doors, promising to have the hotel’s shopper pick up a new dress for her. The doors closed with a soft click and Shane was alone with Lim. He stole one quick look down at the locket before turning his attention to the man in front of him. Lim’s arms were crossed and he looked at the ground, biting his lip and nodding.

“So,” Lim finally said. “Is that all or is there some more detective work you want Andrew and me to do for you?”

“I’ve brought jewelry for you to appraise before.”

“That's not what I meant and you know it. There were gaps in the story that you couldn't fill in until we started asking the questions. And all because you were too distracted by that damn locket to get any work done.”

“It's related to that case,” Shane said, holding it up so Lim could see the photograph again. “This is the man, the one I saw the night of Ryan's death. You thought I was crazy when I told you about him. Hell, I thought I was crazy. But here is proof that he actually exists. And I’m so damn close to a lead again. I have a name to go off of! I never had that before.”

“What you have,” Lim said, reaching out and snapping the locket closed, “is a name he had stolen. You can't prove that he was on the docks that night.”

“But I have a picture and-”

“You have a photograph that's half the size of a stamp. You see what you want to see, just like you did five years ago.”

“You don't know that! You weren't there, Lim!”

“I know that your mind wasn't in the right place that night.”

“You're fucking right it wasn't! I just saw my best friend get shot in the fucking face. I watched his body get dumped into the goddamn Pacific.”

Lim met Shane’s eyes for the first time in what Shane realized was a long, long while. He was finally ready to give Lim a piece of his mind for being so cold for all these years when he desperately needed to talk to someone who could possibly understand what he felt for Ryan. He couldn’t even talk to Ilnyckyj about it without hearing Lim’s words come out of his mouth. But as much as Shane had wanted to call Lim a coward he was stopped short by that dark and piercing gaze. Instead the two men stood in silence, Shane’s thumb running over the smooth sides of the locket – hot in his palm.

Shane closed his eyes, his anger melting away into that familiar ache. “I loved him, Steven.”

He hadn’t called Lim by his first name in years and although Shane’s eyes were closed he could feel Lim tense. They hadn’t always been so formal and distant. They had Ryan to thank for those days.

“I know,” Lim said. “He could have had…”

“Say it.” Shane opened his eyes to look at Lim, studying his features. “I know you’ve been wanting to.”

“He could have had a better life, Shane.” Lim took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair, looking towards the desk where Ilnyckyj usually stood. “He could have spent his last two years doing something other than hiding in back alleys and your seedy little apartment.”

“Why? Because Night was out and about? Night had the money to throw at the _Qu’est-ce que c’est_. You can afford a lot of luxuries with that kind of cash, even if the government wanted to arrest you because of where your mother was born.”

“We offered to help you two! Yeah you work with the cops but were you so naïve that you didn’t think that they were crooked? Were you somehow working with the one cop in L.A. who never took a bribe?”

“Ryan was afraid that a simple bribe could have been twisted into a charge of treason. He thought he would have gone to prison for trying to escape being sent to those camps.”

“He already was imprisoned in your apartment! He could have stayed here in the hotel. I offered god-knows how many times.”

“And he said that he didn’t want you to take that kind of risk because of him. Hell, I was relieved when he accepted _my_ offer.”

“He stayed in L.A. because of you, Madej!” Lim snapped. “As soon as the administration started talking about restricted zones and camps you should have gone home to Chicago; if only because he would have followed you.”

“It’s easy to say that now. We didn’t know how much more the restricted zone would grow or how long the war would last. Besides, this was his home. I did all I could.”

“You could have-” Lim bit at his lip, stopping himself. He shook his head. “Nevermind.”

“Were you about to say I could have told him to turn himself in?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Lim saw the anger in Shane’s eyes for only a moment before he stepped past him and towards the bar cart against the wall. “I didn’t want it to happen to him either. I admired how he fought that injustice and, to be honest, I’m not sure if I would have done the same. I just sometimes get to thinking that any alternative would be better than this.”

The doors to the office opened and Ilnyckyj stepped back in. He looked between Shane and Lim before adjusting his shirt cuffs and putting himself between them – just as he always did.

“I didn’t expect you to still be here, Detective. Is everything alright?”

Shane looked to Lim. Then to Ilnyckyj. Then to the door. “I was just on my way out. If I want to find any clues at that crime scene I’ll need to get there before the police.”

Lim poured himself a drink. “Fine.”

A bitterness rose like bile in Shane and he tried his best to regain his composure on his short walk to the office doors. But as much as he wanted to get back into his car to rant about Lim to himself he stopped. No matter what they said to each other Shane still wasn’t ready to leave angry. If there was anything Ryan taught him it was that.

“We all wish we could have done something to stop this,” Shane said, turning to Lim as he opened the door. “If we knew then what we know now, things would have been very different.”

Lim didn’t turn to acknowledge Shane but there was a certain stillness about him that suggested that he heard him. And in an instant Shane was standing in the bright hallway of the hotel again. He looked down at the locket in his hands and undid the clasp, bowing his head as he fastened it around his own neck. Just as he was about to tuck the necklace under his shirt the door opened and Ilnyckyj was standing there, watching with a silent curiosity. In spite of the heat Shane fastened another button and smoothed out the fabric.

“Thank you for putting Miss Alcorn up for the night,” Shane said. “I’ll have more information for her by noon tomorrow. Or, today, rather.”

Ilnyckyj nodded at the locket. “That really was him? The man who killed Ryan?”

“I think so, yes.”

Ilnyckyj looked to his closed office doors and sighed, walking towards the lobby and motioning Shane to follow. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you when you told me about him the first time.”

“I didn’t believe it myself,” Shane said. He looked down at the polished marble floors, admiring the way the light played against the stone. “After his death I kept thinking I saw him in crowds or heard his voice in a crowded room. Each time I dropped everything and ran to him… I mean… I tried to run to him. Of course he was never there. Sometimes I could almost feel him lying in bed next to me and I was afraid to open my eyes because I knew I was alone. Every day I followed echoes and shadows to nowhere, each time feeling like I lost him over and over.” When Shane pulled himself out of his trancelike memories he turned to Ilnyckyj, a concerned furrow to his brow. “I don’t mean to be so morose. I’m just relieved that I have something tangible to work with. It’s proof that maybe all this obsessing and hurt wasn’t all for naught.”

Ilnyckyj nodded, slow and thoughtful as they crossed the lobby. “I suppose. You just never struck me as the sort to go looking for ghosts.”

There was the sudden, quick, distinct click of high heels. “Mr. Ilnyckyj? Detective?” The two men turned to see a young woman in a hotel uniform approach them, envelope in her hand. “Message for you, detective.”

Andrew cocked an eyebrow. “From Miss Alcorn?”

“I’m not sure, sir. It was dropped off on the desk when I was answering a call in the reception office.”

Shane took the letter and turned it over in his hands. The writing was clear and ornate. _To Detective Shane Madej. Urgent._ It had a wax seal, stamped with an image of a bird with wings of fire. He opened it.

 

> _Detective Madej,_
> 
> _Your involvement in this case, however amusing I may find it, will prove to be perilous for you if you do not follow my exact instructions. Do not under any circumstances investigate the scene of the red wedding. Instead, come directly and immediately to the home of Mr. Night Bergara and Miss Mimsy Alcorn. Come alone and unarmed and you will not be hurt._
> 
> _Once there you have two options. You can close yourself in the master bedroom and I will tell you the locations of your current targets. Then you will leave, burn this letter, collect your reward, and never speak of me again. Alternatively, you can close yourself in the office and learn the truth about Ryan Steven Bergara. If you choose this route, I cannot guarantee your safety or answers to questions about this current case. Whatever decision you make is yours alone._
> 
> _Bring the locket._
> 
> _Forever,_
> 
> _Ricky Goldsworth_


End file.
